Jaipur: Flouting Election Commission of India’s (ECI) guidelines that exempt territorial staff of the forest department from election duty, the Uttarakhand government has issued orders to deploy forest staff and their patrolling vehicles for the upcoming panchayat elections.
Of the state’s 13 districts, all except Haridwar will hold gram panchayat elections, which have been scheduled in three phases: October 6, 11 and 16.
In an order accessed by The Wire, the district magistrate of Nainital has assigned election duty to several forest officers. In fact, forest officers in all the 12 districts have been given these orders.
Despite resistance from forest staff about being deployed for election duty, authorities have not revoked the order. Territorial staff includes beat officers, forest guards, foresters, deputy range officers, range officers, sub-divisional officers and divisional forest officers.
The senior superintendent of police of Almora wrote to the deputy district election officer requesting the territorial staff of the forest department to be exempt, in line with the ECI’s guidelines. However, in his reply dated September 28, 2019, the deputy district election officer said the territorial staff of the forest department couldn’t be exempted, citing lack of manpower. He added, “conducting fair elections” is the priority.
The authorities have claimed that the ECI’s guidelines don’t prevent them from appointing the territorial staff for the election duty. Nitin Bhadauria, the district magistrate and district election officer of Almora, told The Wire, “This is a state election [ECI guidelines are only for the Lok Sabha elections] and from where do we bring the manpower to conduct the elections [if the forest department is exempted]?”
The Forest Guard Association in Uttarakhand has also written to the state election commissioner demanding exemption from the election duty. “At present, 40% of the territorial staff positions in Uttarakhand are vacant. The forest guards are already overburdened and if they are deployed on election duty, wildlife would be under serious threat,” the letter reads.
Shashivardhan Adhikari, general secretary of the Uttarakhand Forest Guard Association, told The Wire, “Almost, 90% of the territorial staff is deployed for the election duty in our division. Despite ECI guidelines, we are assigned election duty in every election. This time also, we have written to the election commissioner but no action has been taken till date.”
As the patrolling vehicles of the territorial staff are being acquired for election duty, the rangers are finding it difficult to deal with emergencies in forests.
“A few days ago, we received a call from locals in the late evening informing us that a leopard had entered their village. They wanted us to rescue the animal immediately, but we couldn’t provide any help as our vehicles were deployed for election duty. It is really difficult to hire a private vehicle on such short notice,” a range officer from Uttarakhand who didn’t wish to be named told The Wire.
“Rescue operation requires us to carry a cage, which is impossible to be carried without a vehicle. So, we could reach there only next morning in a private vehicle. Our duty requires us to be vigilant. In our absence, wildlife and other resources could be exploited,” he added.
As per the latest Tiger census, there are about 130 tigers outside the protected area (national parks and wildlife centuries) in the Terai-East, West, Central, Ramnagar and Haldwani areas of Uttarakhand. Because of the gravity of man-animal conflict reported in these areas, a quick response team was formed to rescue the wildlife.
However, even their vehicle has been acquired for election duty. “We need the rescue vehicle 24×7 but it has been deployed for election duty for the past five days,” Vimal Raj, wildlife veterinary officer in the western circle told The Wire. This suggests that both wildlife and people could be under threat in the forest guard’s absence.
The lowest administrative unit in forest management is beat, manned by a forest guard. However, as per information available on the official website of the Uttarakhand forest department, against a sanctioned strength of 3,650 forest guards, only around 2,100 are working. In many forest areas, guards are managing two or more beats, resulting in poor wildlife protection.
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A PIL filed in the Supreme Court this year said that Uttarakhand has a forest area of 25,863 sq km under the forest department and another 12,136 sq km under the van panchayat and the revenue department. Petitioner Rituparn Uniyal, seeking urgent steps to protect wildlife and forests, said a forest guard is handling roughly 16.66 sq km of area when ideally, in plain areas, a forest guard should not be allowed to handle more than 5 sq km and in the hills, not more than 3 sq km, for effective protection of forests.
Meanwhile, ahead of the assembly polls in October, the Maharashtra chief electoral officer (CEO) has issued an order exempting senior officers of the Indian Forest Service and territorial staff of the forest department from poll duty.